


1 Part Happy To 2 Parts Pain

by Snapjack



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Brief mention of martyrdom within the context of Night Vale, Brief mention of potential suicide bombing within the context of Night Vale, Dark, Heavy Angst, Like brace yourself, M/M, Mini, Romantic Angst, Unhappy Ending, Unresolved, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignette, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:27:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapjack/pseuds/Snapjack
Summary: Three very loosely connected and not-exactly sequential Welcome to Night Vale vignettes, one told from Carlos's perspective and two from Earl Harlan's. These date from around 2016, won't be updated, and contain weapons-grade angst from Earl's perspective.





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
Carlos thinks he might be getting the hang of Night Vale's weather. Sort of.

It started one morning when, on the way out the door, he paused and reached for his umbrella. It wasn't until he was all the way down the sidewalk, clearing his windshield of dead animals, that he realized that the reason he was preparing for rain wasn't the sky or the atmosphere or any ominous clouds in the distance, but the radio. Specifically, Dolly Parton. The bluegrass had reached into some deeper, intuitive part of his brain and delivered a subliminal message. Carlos looked down at himself in shocked delight: waterproof lab coat, safety goggles, even his special purple rubber boots that Cecil had given him on his birthday because "really, darling, it's basic birthday safety." He'd put all of it on without even realizing that he was doing it, just because Dolly'd told him to. The song ended, and as Carlos drove into work, listening to Cecil burble on happily about some sort of Entrail Festival that Carlos would almost certainly get dragged to this weekend, he tried to think about what other information the bluegrass might have been trying to convey.

It wasn't easy for Carlos to think like this; throughout his life, music had been just background noise. Other people responded to it strongly - Carlos had had a roommate in college who was a music major - a music major! In a down economy! - but Carlos had always chalked that up to sentimentality, or (in the case of his roommate) a profound failure to grasp the basic tenets of economic reality. Of course, Carlos had been gone and majored in a pure science, so he really had no room to talk.  
"Hypocrisy, thy name is Carlos Menendez," he muttered, pulling into his parking space and paying the parking deity in the small change it favored--he'd only made the mistake of asking it to break a five once, and the side of his car was still all covered in tiny, quarter-sized dents he was too poor to have fixed. Maybe his roommate had been right, with the music thing. Carlos paid close attention to his mood and his rate of success and productivity in the lab that afternoon, and when three successive hours of work resulted only in A) coffee down the front of his shirt and B) a small but growing vortex made of pure malevolence massing itself above his lab table, he decided to take the afternoon off.

Weirdly, his car almost steered itself to Cecil's radio station. Carlos didn't remember telling it to do that. But then again, Carlos didn't remember telling his car that he wanted a small amount of stingray blood to seep from the CD player every time he tried to use the GPS, so. There's that.

Cecil was just coming out the back door of the radio station when Carlos arrived. "Carlos!" he said, looking that combination of surprised/thrilled/concerned that he always did when seeing Carlos, like on some level something must be wrong, for Carlos to want to see him. Like Carlos couldn't possibly be there for him. It made Carlos feel guilty. Thankfully, there was some weather that could help him with that. He got out into the rain, which by now was a proper guilty downpour, and they stood there in the back parking lot near the Dumpster, being soaked at each other.

"Good weather forecast," Carlos finally said, because he couldn't think if what else to say, and because in bluegrass, if he understands the form correctly, you say what you mean to say through the sound of the music and not the words.  
"What?!" Cecil yells over the drumming-down rain, which smells sweet and intense and a little like burning ozone from very far off. " I can't hear you!"  
"I said," hollers Carlos, "It was a good weather forecast today!" and Cecil's blinding smile in response tells Carlos everything he needs to say has been heard, or at least, intuited.

Loud and clear.

 


	2. Chapter 2

There's a rumor going around town that Cecil isn't as much of a chump as Carlos is taking him for. 

 

 

Earl really hopes the rumor's true. Because, otherwise, listening to Cecil go on and on about his "hero scientist boyfriend, trapped in the otherworld desert" while Carlos calls into the radio station--increasingly less frequently, and always with some jarhead named Doug hovering around in the periphery of his stories--and if Palmer can't see what THAT shit is, then Earl can't help him--is just depressing the shit out of Earl. It's just sad. Like it would be sad to listen to anyone who couldn't see what was going on in front of 'em. 'S got nothing to do with that old torch Earl used to carry way back in high school. 

 

 

_Shit_. Not even Earl can make that horseshit sell. If he's gonna think about this, he needs some fucking whiskey. He rises from the bed and goes to the corner of the room, where he kicks a throw rug aside and then gets down on his knees, prying up a loose floorboard. He carefully rolls up one sleeve before sticking his hand down into the cold water that's there, ignoring the fleshy, curious lips of the the catfish, and the winding tentacles of the Other Thing that's living down there, the thing he's been resolutely ignoring until it gets big enough to be worth the call to the exorcists. If it ain't bothering you or killing your dogs, leave it alone, has always been Earl's policy. Eventually, his fingers close around the neck of the bottle he's looking for, and he tugs it upwards and stands, wiping the bottle off with his shirttail. He thinks about whether this is a good idea for about five seconds, then breaks the seal and swigs directly from the bottle. 

 

 

Memory One of Cecil Palmer hits him right along with the whiskey, nearly knocking him over with the headrush. They're in high school, and Cecil, who's already taller than most everyone in their class except for Erika (who has three faces and is of indeterminate gender and has long arms and also wings and unfortunately isn't into organized sports or she/he/it'd be pretty much unstoppable on a basketball court) is driving towards the basket with the sort of red-faced intensity that some blondes get, lips pursed, sweat pouring off him, and he shoulders past Earl, who's playing shirts in the shirts-and-skins game they've got going on, and as he goes Earl catches a whiff of him and the scent of him damn near causes Earl to have some kinda pulmonary embolism or heart thing or maybe a brain aneurysm or something right there on the court. Cecil smells like a laurel hell, is the thing. A wet, dripping grove of twisted laurel trees, reaching up overhead, blocking out the sun, a thing that only grows in Kentucky, a witch's cottage of trees, damp and earthy and withholding of secrets. It's a smell Earl hasn't smelled since his family left and moved them here, and he's not even sure how long they've been here but, at eighteen, he's beginning to suspect that it's been longer than is shown on the calendar. And Cecil drives on past him, and makes the basket, and Earl is stuck standing there, with his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth, mute and wordless with longing for home. 

 

 

Memory Two comes when Earl is a couple swigs into the bottle and is sitting on his bed, shirt off and flung in the corner, tattoos alive on his skin and frolicking around like they're glad to be out in the air. They probably are. Earl doesn't take his shirt off much if he can help it, always like to keep t-shirts on whenever possible, which is a matter of some commentary in a hot desert community. (Of course, ever damn thing under the sun is a matter of some commentary in a town as small as Night Vale.) People think he must have scars, or tattoos of which he's ashamed. He doesn't. He's shy. It's that simple. Only four people have ever seen Earl without his shirt on, and one of those people is his momma. One of them is Cecil. It happened when they were a little older, maybe senior year. It's before that night of orange milk that Cecil likes to fondly recall whenever they see each other in public. Earl wishes he wouldn't, but if excavating that memory is what it takes to keep Cecil away from the darker, more tender memory of the night he's thinking of, then that's fine, too. 

 

 

Memory Three comes when he's lying flat on his back, working his cock and trying not to shake the still-open (but nearly empty) bottle of whiskey off the bed. This is the one he comes back to, again and again. It's almost worn out, the memory: it's a flat panel where it used to be a full 3-D experience, and he's run it through the mental projector so many times that the colors and sounds are starting to fade. About all that brings it back for him, these days, is scent. Specifically, the wet, salty tang of chlorine. Earl's in the visiting team showers by the pool in Desert Bluffs Creek High. It's senior year and they're both on the swim team--Cecil because he's good for the swim team, and Earl because Cecil's on the swim team. They've done well, though not outstandingly, and Earl's tired, but not exhausted. Which is why he'd tried to sneak in a quick jerk before Cecil could finish his lap and come back to the showers, and before the long, bumpy bus ride back to Night Vale, which Earl knew from experience was no fun with a hard-on. And while he's lost in the steam, eyes closed, trying to finish fast, he feels a hand clap down on his shoulder. Of course Cecil would finish first. He's fast. That's why the swim team wanted him. 

"Hey there, buddy, need a hand?" Cecil says, free and easy and gentle as you please, with this lilting innocence in his voice that's still there to this day, like a friendly hand job is something that you offer as freely as you would a glass of lemonade or a spare cigarette. And before Earl can say anything--anything like, "No thanks" or "I'm shy" or "I got this under control, thanks buddy", Cecil's just reached around and taken him in hand, just as graceful and natural as he does everything else, his other hand on Earl's shoulder and a soft "Easy there, I gotcha" in Earl's ear. 

And his touch was firm but not too strong, and confident and rhythmic and overhanded in a way that Earl had never even tried touching himself, a weird sorta Euro grip that Earl would spend the rest of his days trying (and failing) to replicate. Something about not being able to feel the same way when it's your own hand, he guesses. But it's the scent of chlorine and come, now, that he pulls up whenever he wants to remember the ghost of that sensation, the pounding hush of the showers, the squeak and slosh of flip-flops outside by the pool, Cecil's voice, overwhelming even then, in his ear, telling him he was fine, he had him, just relax, he'd done good. 

 

 

Earl relaxes back down towards the bed, his spine sagging out of the arch it makes whenever he comes; he's only a little chagrined to notice that his face is as wet as his hand and his stomach. He knuckles away the tears and sits up. Puts the bottle down on the floor with a definitive thud. walks into the kitchen, gets some water, comes back, sits on the bed drinking it and listening to the rain on his roof. 

 

Somehow, when he wasn't listening for it, it came in. 


	3. Chapter 3

OK. It's not thatEarldisagrees with the ban. Hell, he saw it coming way back in June, what with the sudden uptick in gluten intolerances and  celiac diagnoses, not to mention all the hitherto unknown (in Night Vale) venomous snakes that started appearing everywhere. Hell, Tamika Flynn's little sister Bethesda found an honest-to-God pit viper in her pencil case, where she'd sworn all she had were some Twinkies, and those (the pit vipers. Not the Twinkies.) aren't even supposed to exist outside of certain areas of northern India. Anyway, point is,Earlsaw it coming and was as ready to go wheat and wheat byproduct free as the rest of the community when it happened.

The thing is. The thing is...

It's just thatEarlcould really use a beer right now.

And sure, sure, he's tried wine. And gluten-free Redbridge beer (brewed with sorghum?) is surprisingly alright, all things considering. ButEarlis a Kentucky boy, bread and butter. And he can't help the way he was raised: on pale glasses of moonshine and crates and crates of whiskey (Don't even talk to him about Jim Beam right now. Just don't. He can't even start thinking about that or he'll go insane.) and, most crucially, cans and cans and cans of Budweiser and Michelob and Coors. (What? They weren't a rich family. It's what he was raised on, so it's what he likes.) And right now, it's what he misses. A chilled can of Budweiser, and about three more just waiting in the cooler, right there, within arms reach, on a warm summer night on the front porch when the fireflies are rising and just starting to light up. And maybe a good man, too, also with an arm's reach... a slim man, perhaps, with thinning blonde hair and some inky blue-green tattoos twining themselves like curious vines around his neck and forearms. No. No, no, no.Earl _cannot_ allow himself to think about this. That's another thing thatEarljust cannot afford to think about. He's got a _boyfriend_ , for God's sake;Earlhas never--Earlwould never--anyway. That's just not happening, is the point. 

Earljust wishes he knew why this particular thought was so hard not to think.Earl's a resident of _Night Vale_ , for God's sake. He doesn't think about things _professionally_. Right now, for instance, he is absolutely not thinking about the fact that Tamika Flynn and his Blood Pact scouts have been running an advanced tactical workshop on urban block-by-block warfare in the scrub wastes for the past three weeks, and that Cecil Palmer's niece, Janice, is at this very moment a rolling armory in a wheelchair they've outfitted with enough bang to take down a nine-story building . She's already filmed her martyrdom video, andEarl's been very successful at not thinking about how his throat had filled with tears as he pressed the record button and tried to hold the camera steady, focusing on the blinking red light as she spoke, so as not to hear any of her words. Cecil would never forgive -- there it is again. That thing thatEarl is utterly incapable of not thinking about.

Goddamnit.

Earlreaches for his Scoutmaster's hat, his old denim jacket, and his evening grenade launcher on the way out the door. He may not be able to do what he wants to, but he can at least forget about it. There's a speakeasy somewhere in this town that's rumored to serve Jim Beam, andEarlis going to find it tonight, or die trying.

Hell, it's Night Vale. That last part ought to come easy.


End file.
